Global Crossing

Global Crossing was founded in 1997 and became the fourth largest bankruptcy in U.S. history of that time a mere 5 years later. Specifically, Global Crossing was swapping network capacity with other carriers to artificially inflate earnings and make the company look more profitable than it was. The road to that bankruptcy is a story of revenues inflated by what appears to be fraudulent accounting, in which senior executives [Page 1610]enriched themselves while Arthur Andersen served as auditor. Global Crossing employees and shareholders seem to have been left holding the bag, much as in the Enron bankruptcy filed just 2 months earlier.

Global Crossing was the brainchild of Gary Winnick. Winnick was a former junk bond financier who worked with Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert ...